


Nor Hate, Nor Hurt, Nor Shun

by tb_ll57



Series: In The Quiet Heart Is Hidden [4]
Category: The Song of the Lioness - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Background Relationships, Background Slash, Canon Compliant, Canon Het Relationship, F/M, Gap Filler, M/M, Sibling Bonding, Slight canon deviation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 06:59:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3372113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tb_ll57/pseuds/tb_ll57
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>'It's been a little wretched, in truth,' Thom said.  He paused at the spot where Ishak had died, though Alanna had yet to fully explain that.  It was too near and too painful still, and when Thom suddenly turned and put out his hand, Alanna found her eyes stinging with tears.  She interlaced their fingers tightly.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nor Hate, Nor Hurt, Nor Shun

But what are the beauties of nature to me?  
With sorrow, deep sorrow, my bosom is laden,  
All day I go mourning in search of my love;  
Ye echoes, oh, tell me, where is the sweet maiden?  
"She sleeps, 'neath the green turf down by the ash grove."

~The Ash Grove, Welsh Folk Song

They told Alanna they had come to teach and learn. Every wise shaman, said Umar Komm, confronted the new and studied it with an objective eye. If Alanna had any sceptical thoughts on her experience of objectivity in Bazhir shamans of her personal acquaintance, she didn't speak them; she could see for herself that her new visitors, at least, were sincere, and indeed she was flattered by their evident delight in the long and winding discussions of desert magic that grew-- inevitably, for the Bazhir-- into sprawling week-long debates. Once again Alanna was impressed with the careful Bazhir fairness in hearing every voice, considering every point. She learned, for the first time ever really, really learnt about sorcery. Duke Roger had dictated in his magical instruction, and though she came to realise he had at least provided her with a solid foundation of theory which put her scholastically in a position of authority compared to most mages who learnt through ceremony and recitation, she also discovered something she had never known before: the joy of magic for the sake of magic.

'Still,' she told Ali Mukhtab, 'it's rather a shame.'

He puffed on his pipe. He always offered it, and generally she declined, but flush with a full night's exercise of strange new sorcery, she found herself accepting. Mukhtab smiled at her first smothered cough. 'And what is this shame?' he wondered.

'Well, only that we're so isolated. It will be hard for other tribes to send their shamans here. It would be weeks of travel, not even counting the time they want to spend here studying.'

'They will come,' Mukhtab said, in that complacent way Bazhir had of confronting impossible practicality. At his gesture, she carefully sucked strange and heavy smoke through the pipe. It tingled on her tongue. It was pleasant, and got better when she did it again, although it made her lungs feel stretched.

'It's an honour to the Bloody Hawk,' she said then, returning the pipe to him. 'As has been your presence here. This is rather a lot like politics.'

His teeth flashed in a grin. 'Rather a lot, yes. And I recall how you detest politics. But do not forget none of this fame would have come to the Bloody Hawk if you had not come first.'

Alanna made a face at that. 'Coram and I just happened to be near Bloody Hawk territory, that's all.'

'Perhaps. If one believes in happenstance.' Mukhtab knocked ash from the pipe bowl. 'We have become friends, have we not, Woman Who Rides Like A Man?'

Alanna plucked at the knees of her breeches, thinking that through. 'We have,' she agreed. 'I suppose you'll tell me you knew we would. You'll tell me you were made Governor of Persepolis so that you could show me the Sun Room so that I could ride out with Jonathan to destroy the Ysandir at the Black City--'

'Yes,' Mukhtab agreed calmly and without Alanna's laughter.

She pulled another face. 'I was joking.'

'I do not object in the least to my role as an instrument of fate. But do not forget that had I not been Governor of Persepolis when you destroyed the Ysandir, I would not then have understood what I needed to understand to become the Voice of the Tribes, and we would not now be sitting here together, warrior of the Northern King.' Mukhtab tucked his pipe between his teeth and considered her with his sleepy eyes. 'It is good to have a friend, as one nears one's end. If not for fate, I would be alone. So I am glad.'

Women didn't touch men who were not their relations, not amongst these solemn desert people, but Alanna did it without thinking. His hand lay on the embroidered pillow between them, and Alanna put hers over it, curling her fingers to his palm. His eyes closed, and his chest went still, and Alanna needed no Sight to predict what she would feel when this happened for real. Her throat tight, she squeezed his hand. After a moment, almost tentative, and then suddenly fierce, he returned the pressure.

The ground beneath them trembled, and the lamp hanging from the tent poles danced. 'Visitors?' Alanna wondered, as Mukhtab released her and overturned the embers of his pipe into the ash bin. He rose, sinuous, and she shoved herself to her feet, holding back the blankets so he could duck out before her. The moon was a slender arc in the sky, the stars almost painfully bright in its absence. Alanna bent just in time to catch Faithful as he hopped from a crate into her arms, and she settled him on her shoulder.

'I think you will like these visitors,' Mukhtab said, grinning down at her.

By the time they reached the central fire, the horses had already been led away, and a great mound of baggage had accumulated, notable for its lack of identifying sigils. Halef Seif stood between a crowd of curious Bazhir and a much smaller group of men in Northern tunic and breeches, their bare heads proclaiming them foreigners, for no Bazhir had such blazing ginger hair--

'Thom!' Alanna gasped, and lost Faithful in her quick dash through the congregation, and nearly knocking Thom clear off his feet with the force of her embrace. They were laughing and she kissed him soundly in a singularly unseemly display, and she didn't give a single damn about it. For his part Thom buried his face in her shoulder and locked his arms about her tight enough to squeeze the breath clear out of her.

'Missed you,' he whispered. 'Oh, bugger off.'

That was not directed at her, but at the grinning man who stood behind Thom, tapping his shoulder. 'My turn,' Jonathan said.

Alanna had recovered enough from her surprise that she did not leap at this man. The Bazhir would forgive her enthusiasm for her brother as they forgave her other eccentricities, but if she defied propriety with a man so obviously-- so obviously Jonathan, they wouldn't be able to look the other way. So there was only Jonathan's hand, extended across carefully maintained distance, and he gripped her by the wrist, but she was sure he could feel the wild thrum of her pulse, as she could feel his. Oh, and his eyes-- his eyes gave everything away. She tasted bitterness, almost as if her body were preparing her for battle. She drank him in with a mind gone keen-- was he older already, or did she only imagine it, having been parted from him these months? Had he always been so tall, his shoulders so broad? He'd grown a beard and he looked so like his father, like-- Roger. She swallowed harshly. After Jonathan there was Myles, still shaggy and yet strangely unruffled, for all his sagging hosen and wind-whipped hair. And behind him, gripping her hand only briefly, Alexander of Tirragen, and that made her look sharpish at Jon, but there was no way to ask about it, not here, not now. Coram got the second round of greetings, and she left off her suspicions long enough to laugh when Coram, evidently as moved as she was, went so far as to ruffle Thom's hair. Even more outrageous, Thom actually allowed it.

'We deeply regret the lateness of our arrival,' Jonathan was saying with a respectful bow to Halef Seif. 'We were waylaid by hillmen. No, no injuries. Our mage...' He seemed to pause, as if searching for the right word. Thom rolled his eyes at Alanna. 'Quite handily protected us,' Jon finished. 'But it did delay us.'

'You are welcome,' Halef Seif replied, bowing in return, low enough for a chieftan who did not outrank a prince, but not so low that it was not clear to all that this chieftan greeted a Northern prince as a visitor, not an overlord. Politics, Alanna thought, and was amused to think of how it might have gone if Halef Seif had had to dance that dance in Corus. The headman of the Bloody Hawk would have given Duke Gareth a run for his money in a battle of wits. 'We have expected you. Accommodations are ready. But you have missed the evening meal.'

Alanna opened her mouth to explain that formality, even if Halef Seif was only gently chiding, but Ali Mukhtab unexpectedly intervened. 'Send the children with a small repast,' he suggested, and the bow Halef Seif answered him was rather much lower than the one he'd given Jonathan, and that set the universe back in proper order. 'We will feast tomorrow,' Mukhtab said then. 'The hospitality of the Bloody Hawk is becoming legend. I am honoured to welcome you as my guests amongst these good people.'

There followed a great deal of fuss; it was one thing to plan for the arrival of several Northern nobles, and another to actually settle them in. Alanna could not follow them to the tent that had been raised for them, and she only just managed to wave 'good night' to the men, as Coram led them off. There was sleepy chatter from the Bazhir, murmuring to each other over a sight that in times past would have been quite remarkable indeed, and Kara and Kourrem had dozens of questions ranging from the identities of the new arrivals to wonderment at Thom's strategy against the hillmen's shamans. Faithful disappeared again, and so did Ali Mukhtab, off to his tent for a well-earned sleep, having enjoyed surprising her, no doubt, and Halef Seif stopped at her side to murmur, 'Well,' as if that spoke for everything, and Alanna supposed it did.

'Well,' she agreed, and returned to her tent.

Well. Somehow she was not surprised Jonathan was there, waiting for her. Kara and Kourrem at her heels suddenly vanished, though Alanna could hear them whispering as they hurried away. That, Alanna gave a damn for, wishing they hadn't seen and knowing they'd be full of entirely different questions by morning. At least the shaman school had long departed for their beds.

In the glow of her lamp Jonathan was achingly beautiful. The blue-black of his hair swept his shoulders. The arch of his nose was slightly sunburnt, the skin of his high cheekbones unusually red, but it only made his eyes all the more brilliantly jewel-like. He'd tracked in sand on his boots. The look he swept over her was starving.

'I didn't want to disgrace you in front of the tribesmen,' he said, and even his voice left her raw. 'Myles said women don't touch men in public.'

'No,' she replied, twisting her hands in her robe.

Awkward, he tried again. 'I'm going to be here a while. Ali Mukhtab says there's much I have to learn.'

'Do their Majesties know where you are?'

He shrugged. 'They know I'm with Myles, which lends sufficient legitimacy. I took Thom, so they can hardly complain. Your brother's made quite the splash at Court. Did you hear about his duel with the Carthaki mage?'

'No, I've... I've been a bit parched for news of home.'

'It is home,' he said, intently, questioning. His hands twitched toward her. 'It is still home, then.'

'Of course it is,' she whispered, and with that he strode across the carpet toward her, jerked her near with a rough yank, and mashed his mouth to hers.

'I've missed you so much,' he moaned, shoving at her robe, dragging his hand over her breasts, her flank, stopping at the laces of her breeches. 'Need you. I've been dreaming of this-- you-- Alanna--'

It was fast, almost unsatisfying in how quickly it was over. She rose after to douse the lamp, to toss her sandals to the corner, to properly undress. Jonathan shifted around on her bedroll and blankets, pushing pillows this way and that til he had a comfortable nest, and when she passed near enough he wrapped a hand about her ankle, stroking up her leg. She knelt beside him, and he bore her down the rest of the way, kissing her sweetly. This was the Jonathan she loved, the Jonathan who let his walls low and let her in. The ferocious build of desire flared again, and this time he was slow, thorough, letting her know he remembered her secrets. He kissed the inside of her elbow, he kissed the hollow of her throat, he kissed the dimple of her navel, and then he drew her legs wide and kissed her tenderly between them. The night wind muffled their noise, she thought-- she hoped-- as his tongue dragged and rubbed. When he pressed her flat and slid home inside her, this time it felt utterly perfect, as if their bodies could only be satisfied when totally wrapped in each other. He came to a shuddering stop moments after she did, and they slept as one.

 

**

 

'It's been a little wretched, in truth,' Thom said.  He paused at the spot where Ishak had died, though Alanna had yet to fully explain that.  It was too near and too painful still, and when Thom suddenly turned and put out his hand, Alanna found her eyes stinging with tears.  She interlaced their fingers tightly.

They sat in quiet for a while after that, facing the spread of tents along Bloody Hawk land.  Alanna pointed out their oasis and the irrigation for the small plots that ensured crops of dates and sour orange, durum, potato, fig; there was cotton on the southern ridge, and forage to the west and the north, sustaining the herds.  All in all, the land of the Bloody Hawk stretched as wide as the City of Corus, and their hunting territory considerably wider.  Thom was impressed, though she'd have known it even if he hadn't said it.  He drank in every detail and asked probing questions, interested in everything.  He'd been standoffish with her school of shamans, though it occurred to her, watching him sit mum and edgy amongst them as they talked the current topic of weather magic, that he'd likely been the same way in the City of the Gods.  She wasn't the only one who'd lived a lie for too many years.  The desert had unburdened her of much of that, but Thom had gone from the City of the Gods to Corus, where people watched each other even more closely, and tested every perceived weakness.

'I've destroyed as much of Roger's things as I could,' Thom said then.  'He left detailed journals.  That's been helpful.  But some of his magic-- it's strange.  He studied at the University at Carthak for a time.  I've written to a few scholars there about some of his magics.  He utterly covered the Palace.  His mark is on everything, walls, trees, crypts, roofing tiles... I designed a tracer.  I can identify everything he spelled, but unravelling it is harder.  I could spend the rest of my life unweaving every hex and charm.  I haven't figured out yet how he did it.  He must have had some method for replicating them without having to cast it every time, or he wouldn't have been able to eat or sleep.  It's all throughout Corus, actually, but the Palace is the worst.  And his workroom is impossible.  I've sealed it off entirely.  I've about managed to convince Jonathan, and he's trying to convince the King, but I truly think the only thing for it is to wall it up.  If I could get them to agree to burn the place to ashes, that'd be safest, but there's no wishing for the unwishable.'

'I didn't realise it was that bad,' Alanna said, surprised by his flat tone.  More than anything that told her how dire it really was.

'He must have determined very young he wanted the throne.  The Sweating Sickness wasn't his first gambit.  I think he was training the Palace to turn on the King and Queen.  Jonathan, once he was born.  It's a shocking bit of luck he was patient.  He was researching immortality.'

Alanna blew out a slow breath.  'If I'd waited any longer I wouldn't have been able to kill him, would I.'

'I didn't guess it either,' Thom said fairly.  'If I'd known it was that near I'd have come to you sooner.  I should have figured it was something like a Veiling.  With that much magic littering the Palace someone should have found him out.'

'Do you want me to come back and help?' she asked at length.

'No.'  He brought her hand to his lips for an absent kiss.  'You've done the most important thing.  You stopped him.'

'For a while I wasn't sure there was anything beyond killing Roger,' she confessed, something she hadn't quite wholly admitted even to herself, and wouldn't have spoken if not for the rushing wind crawling over her skin, the deep orange of the setting sun, the vast openness of the desert all around them.  Thom, her twin, who knew her well enough to have guessed already.

His quiet words confirmed that.  'There's more,' he said.  'You'll do great things, Alanna.'

'We will.'  She nudged against his shoulder.  'I haven't forgot.  We'll still have our adventures together.'

He didn't answer that.  There were, she discovered, tears on his cheek.  She brushed at them, and he turned his face away, then back to her, and she said, 'Thom... why Alex?'

'Oh,' he said carelessly, recklessly.  'I wondered if you'd noticed.'

'I remember you kissing the baker's boy when we were nine,' she reminded him.  'I never did believe that was just a dare.  But, honestly, I wasn't sure til Myles mentioned you refused to come here without him.'

'That old man is uncommonly nosy.  I know you love him-- he's planning on adopting you, you know.  He asked me my permission.  As if I couldn't take care of you.  Trebond's kept you in armour and I'd have supported your status even if you didn't marry Jonathan.'

'That's rather my decision,' she said hotly.  'Myles and Jonathan, for that matter.'  She gave him a rough shove to the back of the neck, and he rolled away from her in a spray of sand.  'And don't think I don't notice you diverting me.  Don't play those Court games, not with me.'

Thom came to rest on his back with his elbows planted in the soft sand, looking up at her with troubled purple eyes.  He lay flat, and Alanna lay beside him.  He let out a soft pained gasp when she took his hand again.

'It's the easiest way to watch him,' Thom said finally on a strained whisper that only barely carried between them.  'Roger... Roger, he, I think... I think he left Alex and Lady Delia... I don't know for sure, but I think he left them to ensure someone would... in case he died.  Delia's such an obviously lying bitch I can't-- she's always there, Alanna, I hear her hissing every time I show my face in Court.  She spreads rumours, she's always trying to goad me.  Chinyere Dumasani from Carthak, you heard about this?  Delia kept goading us to a sorcerer's duel.  She said it would be to the honour of Tortall if I defeated him.  The Carthaki ambassador got in on it, picking at the King's pride, all these snotty little comments at the parties.  I hate parties.  But when the King asked me, I couldn't say no, could I?'

Myles had told her yesterday.  Thom had nearly killed Dumasani.  The Star Burst wasn't dark magic, but it would have been deadly, and more than deadly.  Dumasani would have been obliterated, if Thom hadn't released it in time.  As it was, Myles had said, Dumasani would likely never recover.

'I don't know if Alex is part of it,' Thom said.  'If there even is an it.  But why else would he want me?'

'Thom.'  She ached for him.  'I should come back.'

'You will do, if you marry the Prince.'

She shrugged uneasily.  'I... suppose.'

They didn't say anything else.  When the sun set, and the night sky began to glow lavender and then blue and then black, they stayed to point out asterisms to each other, and they were still at it when Halef Seif came looking for her, to discuss the upcoming trials.

 

**

 

The new guests began to arrive within a week of Jonathan.  They were headmen of tribes, lawmakers and elders, and they brought their wives and their heirs.  It was clear to everyone that they had come to evaluate Jonathan, the man proposed to become the next Voice of the Tribes, and it was equally clear they were unhappy with what they saw: the son of the hated Northern King, who was not a Bazhir.

There were a few ringleaders, and her joke with Ali Mukhtab about politics began to haunt her as she realised she'd fled Corus only to mire herself in something more deadly than any Court intrigue.  Ali Mukhtab believed Jonathan must succeed him, and Jonathan seemed to believe it as well, but it would not be settled if the tribes did not accept him.  Alanna tracked those who spoke more loudly, asked questions about the ones who spoke too loudly to be ignored, and followed the one who spoke his opposition most plainly.  Amman Kemail of the Sunset Dragon was headman of the largest tribe of the Great Desert, and his word would have carried weight even had he not been personally charismatic, learned, persuasive.  Alanna made careful note who listened and who agreed when Kemail spoke, and judged he had more than half the headmen who were inclined to be suspicious of Jonathan.

Halef Seif shook his head when she inquired.  'The Bloody Hawk cannot speak in this,' he said.

'But you've taken Jonathan's measure,' she argued.  'You know his worth.  And you agree with Ali Mukhtab-- the fighting between our peoples must end.'

'I am too worldly not to agree,' he said.  'I have travelled beyond my own borders and beyond even the Stone City where Ali Mukhtab governed.  I know the Northern peoples have surprassed us in matters of warfare.'  He shrugged in the Bazhir way.  'But Amman Kemail has not.  And many of the headmen have not.  They will not believe what they cannot see.'

'That's a stupid reason,' Alanna said testily.

Halef Seif smiled his slow smile.  'Coming from you, Woman Who Rides Like A Man, I find that interesting indeed.'

Myles had played backseat to Jonathan, leaving him alone in his pursuit of the good opinion that would win him the tribes.  Alanna had had little time for the man who had adopted her, between caring for Ali Mukhtab as he slowly sickened, overseeing the shaman school which rolled on undisturbed but intimately wound up with Jonathan's campaign for the Voice, training her own apprentices for their upcoming ordeals.  That, and Myles often seemed to be in the company of Alex of Tirragen.  She hadn't been alone with Alex since the day their practise duel had nearly turned deadly.  Thom's uncertainty about Alex echoed her own.  No definitive proof had ever been offered that identified Alex as guilty-- but none had ever been offered that named him innocent, either.

She found Myles at a game of chess with Alex.  They played on a carpet with woven squares of black and white, and their pieces were smooth chips of wood painted with symbols, to stand in for the carved men of a regular set.  Alex was sprawled on his side, informal in breeches and a shirt only loosely laced, his feet and head bare.  Myles, who had shrugged at the heat and maintained the same clothes he always wore, was a plump squat on a seat of pillows, and his sole concession to his change in circumstances was to have Alex move pieces for him when his reach would have rocked him out of his nest.  Alanna bit down a smile as she took up the jug of date wine.  She refreshed their small wooden cups first, and poured herself a measure, sitting between them to judge their game.  'You're in check,' she told Myles, surprised.

'Alex is unfortunately a worthy opponent,' Myles said.  He pointed, and Alex moved a chip marked 'rook' for him.

'Still in check,' Alex said lazily.  'Hullo, Alanna.'

'Hullo.'  She swallowed too large a gulp of wine, and cleared her throat.  'Is Thom about?'

'With Jon.'  Alex moved his queen.  'Still in check.'

Alanna fidgeted with the fraying hem of her robe.  'Oh,' she said.  'Something's going to happen with Amman Kemail,' she said abruptly, deciding it didn't matter especially if Alex overheard her worry; he had eyes and this was something that had nothing to do with Roger.  'Bazhir don't play Court games.  He'll confront.  Soon.'

Myles regarded her with an upraised brow.  Alex sat up, crooking a knee to his chest.  'He'll challenge Jon?' Alex asked.

'He could.  Under Bazhir law.  They go to combat over things we'd leave festering-- they don't really believe in hiding your feelings.'

'Jonathan anticipated the possibility of violence,' Myles admitted.  He nodded to Alex.  'He brought a champion.'

That eased her.  'Good,' she said bluntly.  'Kemail isn't a trained fencer.  He'll know hand-to-hand combat, and he's got at least two stone on you, Alex, but I'd take your odds any day.'

'Will they let me fight for him?' Alex wondered.  A crease appeared between two brows.  'There's no law against that?'

'Ordinarily I'd think Jonathan would be expected to represent himself,' Myles said thoughtfully.  'But he's the only heir.  It may not look well for him, to rely on a champion, but under Northern law certainly he'd be unusual if he didn't.  Where Northern and Bazhir law clash...'

'Don't give him the chance to play martyr,' Alanna told Alex.  'If he thinks it'll hurt his position he'll fight Kemail himself.  Step in for him and do it at the first sign of trouble.  There's undecided men around that fire and if they think Jonathan's been insulted with a personal challenge, you may win some of them over by reacting openly.'

'Will he lose face with the rest?'

'They're already against him,' Myles pointed out.  'But it may do no harm to demonstrate a bit of Jonathan's superiority in arms.  You are a wonder to behold in a fight, Alex.  I'd think twice about going to war on a man who commands you.'

'Then I'd best limber up.'  Alex stood.  Alanna joined him, feeling a twitch in her fingertips that heralded a fight.  Alex took her in with an opaque glance, and said, 'Spar for practise, Alan?'  He blinked, and then suddenly grinned.  'Sorry.  Alanna.'

She laughed before she wondered if she believed that slip.  But he'd known her eight years as Alan, and they'd fought a war together, companions in arms under Jonathan's command, and it had the feel of the familiar.  'Let's,' she said.

Her instincts had been right.  It came to a head only two hours later, as the women passed out food by the fire.  The Voice broke his bread and with his right hand offered a hunk to Jonathan; that was not abnormal and had happened every night for ten days.  But this night, Amman Kemail was watching, and there was a banked anger and resentment that was as palpable as a taste on the tongue.  Alanna felt it coming, and reached over Thom to touch Alex's leg.  He looked up, and nodded.

Amman Kemail stood, and conversation died.  'I will not break bread with the son of the Northern King!' Kemail declared.

Alex was tugging on gloves.  He flexed his fingers, rolled his head on his shoulders.  Thom looked at Alanna with some alarm, but she ignored him for the moment, concentrating on Kemail.

The Voice looked up, very slowly, his hands now very still.  'Have you a complaint?' he wondered.  'Your choice of venue is not private, Amman Kemail.'

Kemail did not blush in shame at that cut.  He lifted his chin, and pitched his voice to be heard even by the children who played at the far edges of the crowd.  'He is not one of us.  He has not won the right to sit with us in peace, or to take bread from the hand of the Voice of the Tribes.  Let him prove himself before us all, in the combat!'

Jonathan set a hand flat on the carpet between him, feet flat as he made to rise.  Alex beat him to it, and alone in the halo of the fire he faced off Kemail, stepped in front of his prince, and said just as boldly, 'If combat is demanded, I claim the right to champion my prince.  Your insult will not stand, Amman Kemail of the Sunset Dragon.  Jonathan is worth ten of you.  The Voice was right to choose him.'

Alanna only barely concealed her grin.  Alex had performed perfectly.  That quietly contemptuous reply was as effective as a strike, after Kemail's rant.  Jonathan was fuming, but Myles had a hand on his knee and was speaking very quietly and very rapidly, and the Voice was looking up at Alex, not at the prince who sat at his side, subject of this sudden challenge.  Challenge to Ali Mukhtab, too, who had made his wishes known and found them undermined by a man who didn't like the results.  Alex had placed himself before Jonathan, yes, but his stance put him just a bit in front of Mukhtab, too, and it was clearly purposeful.  He would champion them both.

The Bazhir read all that as truly as she did, and there were unhappy looks out there in the crowd, as the visiting headmen began to wonder if they'd bit off too much chew.

'The combat has been demanded,' Ali Mukhtab said, and in the new hush his tired voice carried.  'Will any speak against it?'

No-one did.  Alanna put her hand over Thom's clenched fist.  He shifted away from her.

Preparation happened in that odd quiet.  Alex, already stretched from his afternoon with Alanna, waited for his dagger in silence.  He stripped his shirt and boots and stood with his hands loose at his side, so utterly still he might have been a statue.  Kemail was pale with anger, knowing now he'd erred, and his closest advisors all hovered near him as he tried hurriedly to ready himself.  In only his loincloth, tanned limbs and heavy muscle shown off in the dancing flame, he strode across the sand and posed at the ready.

Halef Seif had the right to judge, and stood between the two warriors, hand on each of their knives.  'Begin,' he said, and dropped back quickly, only barely out of the way before Kemail lunged forward.

But Alex was back and at his left as if he magicked.  Alex was lightning-fast on the wooden yard of the practise field, but even in the sand he moved swift and true.  Kemail's slash met empty air, and Alex spun him on the way past, scoring a long bleeding scratch down his back and propelling him into a stumble.  Kemail recovered quickly, whirling back to find Alex in a crouch, ducking under his wild swing and nearly nicking him in the gut.  Kemail got lucky with a downward stab, forcing Alex to rear back, and snatched at Alex's hair with his free hand, holding him in place long enough to extract blood of his own as Alex tore away.  Red dripped down Alex's arm, spattering the sand.

Thom's face was white.  He left the circle, and Alanna hesitated, torn between following her twin and needing to see this finished.  Jonathan had noted Thom's flight, as well, and he was grim when he met Alanna's eyes.  There'd be a fight there, later.  But Jon would be alive to do it.

Kemail followed up his advantage with the kind of fighting knights did not learn; he punched, he kicked, and he used his knife to stab, not to slice, as Alex did.  With his greater height and weight he made up for Alex's footwork, and it was closer than it should have been-- closer, perhaps, than it needed to be, if all Alex wanted was a quick win.  Alanna guessed it when Alex took a hit to the kidney and went to a knee-- he'd never in his life been that far disadvantaged, and she knew then he was throwing the fight, or at least dragging it out, to preserve the other man's honour.  There was sweat pouring down Kemail's face and chest, and his breath heaved in ragged gasps while Alex barely showed the effort.  By the time Alex disarmed Kemail and flattened him with a blow to the hip, Kemail probably knew he'd been outmatched from the beginning.  Alex knelt over him, dagger poised at Kemail's throat, and inclined his head toward Jonathan.

All eyes turned to the prince.  Ali Mukhtab said, 'Your champion may kill him.  He has won.  It is your right.'

Jonathan stood.  'I would have him live,' he said, the word ringing out.  'Amman Kemail was honest in expressing his doubts.  Were I in his place, I would have done the same.  Our peoples have been at war too long.  But perhaps now we can begin changing that.  I call on Amman Kemail to meet me in peace.'

Alex plunged his dagger into the sand.  He offered his hand instead.  Kemail took it, sitting up slowly and with a wince.  Jonathan met him halfway, and they clasped hands.

Kara had fetched Alanna's healer's bag, and she was ready the minute Alex left the sand.  'Well done,' she whispered, draping a damp cloth about his shoulders and taking his arm into her lap, studying the tear at the muscle of his upper arm.  It would heal cleanly enough, though it was deeper than she'd hoped.  With needle and thread she stitched, and Alex gulped at date wine.  She wrapped a damp poultice to his wound and bandaged it tightly.  For the spot on his scalp where Kemail had torn away a good handful of hair, she could do little but rub a soothing salve.  'We'll have to get you a hat,' she said, and Alex looked at her, surprised, and exhaled a soft little laugh.

'A burnoose,' Halef Seif corrected over her shoulder.  'You have won the right to join us.  The Bloody Hawk would welcome a warrior of your skill, Alexander, son of Tirragen.'

'I go nowhere without my Lord,' Alex said, and soon Jon and Alex stood before the fire again, arms oustretched, as Halef Seif inducted them into the tribe.

Alanna did not wait around through the scattered applause.  The meal would resume now with the excitement ebbing, and Amman Kemail required even less treatment than Alex, who'd been gentle with him.  Kemail was not stewing, not now, but he was grumpy with her as she cleaned the scratch on his back and bandaged his knuckles.  'Northerners are strange creatures,' he told her, when she stood to leave him, and she only grinned down at him and agreed.  He looked grudgingly pleased with her reaction, and she heard him laugh before she left.

Faithful met her in the shadow of the shaman's tent.  _He went out there,_ the cat said, licking his paw delicately.  _He's upset._

The desert.  The temperature would drop very soon, and Thom had been wearing only a shirt.  Alanna ducked into her tent for a blanket, and went out after him.

At least he was easy to locate.  She cast a spell to illuminate his footprints in pale violet.  As Faithful had said, he'd gone out past the sentry's perimetre, and the boy on watch silently pointed her onward.  Her spell was even less necessary then, as she guessed immediately where he was headed.  To the bluff overlooking the Bloody Hawk lands, where Ishak had died and where the Ordeal of the Voice would take place-- assuredly, now, with Jonathan's opposition quieted.

She draped the blanket about his shoulders as she sat beside him.  'Do you want to talk about it?' she asked.

'No,' he said.  'What I want is to be certain, and I'm not, and I don't know I ever will be.'

'He didn't have to fight for Jon.'

'Then why would he?'

'I don't know.  At the moment, I'm only glad he did.  These people play for keeps.  Alex was the right man to do what he did.'

'He says he wants to do things he'll never get to do.  Take risks he'll never get to take.  He defied the King and Queen, coming out here.'

Not Alex, that.  Jonathan.  Alanna set her thumbnail between her teeth, but Thom did as he'd done since they were children and knocked it away.  She smiled.

'Are you going to marry him?' Thom asked.

She couldn't chew her nail, so she chewed her lip.  'No,' she whispered.  'At least... at least not right now.  I want to do things, too.  Take risks.  I don't want to be bound to anyone who could deny me anything, and...'

'He would.'

'It's too bloody cold out here,' Alanna said then.

Thom huffed.  'Best get used to cold, where you're going.'

She blinked at him.  'Where I'm going?  It's a desert.'  She sat upright.  'You've Seen something?  What?  Where do we go?'

'You,' Thom said, and for the sudden misery in his face she could only embrace him, but he didn't allow it, this time.  He left the blanket in her lap, and he climbed down from the bluff alone.

 

**

 

'Jonathan.'  Queen Lianne beckoned to her son.  Jonathan obeyed the summons, and the scattered nobles in his way moved quickly from his path.  The Prince had been surly since returning from his mysterious trip away, and Corus had rapidly caught his new mood.

'Who's that girl?'

'Josiane,' Alex murmured to him.  He took two glasses as they passed on a tray, and Thom sipped.  It was the cider he liked.  'Princess of somewhere,' Alex said.  'Copper Isles, by her colours.'

Thom had yet to make any headway deciphering the maze of Court symbology, which seemed to include all kinds of strange memorabilia and signifyers, colours being the least of it.  He wore whatever he liked, though he'd discarded his black robes after the duel with Dumasani and never intended to wear them again.  Alex was in black tonight, though a flash of purple beneath his tunic had caught Thom's eye, and he wondered anew what it meant.

It wasn't long before Jonathan was escorting the girl to the dance floor.  He was smiling as they spoke, turning her this way and that in one of those silly-looking line dances with lots of fluttering hands, but his eyes were hard, and when he caught Thom watching, he promptly turned his back.

Alex slid a hand along Thom's back, coming to rest at his waist.  Against the far wall, no-one would notice, but it was comfort and consolation in one.  They hadn't returned from the desert with royal favour, and Jonathan had been at pains to make that evident.

'Will you tell Alanna?'

'Tell her what,' Thom said.  'She already knows he's capable of petty revenge.  He's a boy.  She'll find a man and forget him.'

'Now who's petty.'  Alex's thumb stroked his rib.  'When she was just a squire, a boy, there was no chance of things like marriage.  He tried, at least.  Maybe they just couldn't make it work without the sneaking.  The secrets.'  Alex looked at him, then, and his hand rested, warm, holding him near.  'Do we have to stay?' he asked then.

'No,' Thom decided.  'No, we do not.'

**Author's Note:**

> Some dialogue drawn from The Woman Who Rides Like A Man by Tamora Pierce; pages 123-125; 135; 137-138; 140; 182, Alfred A. Knopf, publisher, 1986.


End file.
